Posted 1 year ago on Feb. 1, 2014, 4:51 p.m. EST by DKAtoday
(26412)
from Coon Rapids, MN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

We ( the people the environment the world ) need true leadership to promote healthy change/growth.

So get together with all champions of the people/environment/world - champions like Bernie Sanders and new up and coming city council woman Kshama Sawant.

Provide concrete plans for the public to support/call for.

For instance - what is one of the most major problems in this country to date?

Unemployment?

What could that be related to?

A Disposable Society?

Replace instead of repair or upgrade what one has?

Now consider - CARS - why in the hell should they be so easily disposed rather than repaired/upgraded?

How many people can actually afford to buy a new car? Once - not often - just once.

With all of the improvements made in the engine efficiency and in transmission efficiency = reduced pollution - reduced need to refill ( more mileage cleaner operation ). Why should replacement of a whole vehicle be necessary?

Don't we need employment opportunities?

What if an individual could get a low interest loan to upgrade their vehicle?

What if an individual could get a loan that they could pay with gas mileage savings?

What would that look like in employment opportunities? Shops all across the USA hiring mechanics for upgrade work. Machine shops all across the USA hiring workers to manufacture the upgrade parts.

Why should all of that processed metal ( engines transmissions etc ) be sold as scrap to foreign countries rather than reprocessed here for reuse?

These are the kinds of things that should be forwarded - for healthy growth as well as for a continuing transition away from massive fossil fuel use as technology gets better and alternatives to fossil fuel become available.

I have a 2003 Chevrolet Malibu - It has a 4 speed auto-matic transmission. The 2014 Malibu has a 6 speed auto-matic transmission = improved performance ( less gas burned ). Why shouldn't I be able to buy that new transmission and have it installed? For 1 it was not made to fit my car - but it could be. My car is in excellent condition - why should I not be able to improve it's performance? I am living on disability - so I will never be able to afford a new efficient vehicle as they become available - but - if I could get a low ( purpose tied ) interest loan for a couple of grand - and if the parts were available for purchase - well then - I could someday afford to upgrade - not replace - UPGRADE. How many millions of people are in the same position?

There are U.S. mechanics who prey on women by deliberately CAUSING symptoms of cars acting up. There are auto-shop owners who do not stick to their promises and break contracts. The fact is that modern cars have become so reliable that auto-shops are put out of business if they depend on maintenance work. Once trust is gone, the work disappears. No fair deals turns into no deals.

Car makers maximize their profits if entire new cars are bought instead of just upgrading existing cars. The car dealers are often NOT responsible for taking the old car back unless they get to sell you a new car. They have no incentives to support modularized upgradings of cars.

The U.S. has become a Rip-Off Society so buying a new car and keeping it for a long time makes economic sense because the quality is less variable for a new car. No one really wants to be sold a disguised Sandy-flooded car, for example.

Our whole idea about cars is all wrong but so much ego is put into cars that we have even exported it to China. It will take them a while to get the real meaning of traffic congestions and parking shortages, I guess.

Hey. Aren't you happy that they learn a lesson or two from us, eh? When will their rivers catch on fire? When will they have electricity rather than coal trucks deliver energy? How about efficiency upgrades and conservation?

Currently - while they are still the worst polluters - they are also investing more than anyone else in new clean technology. Will they end their pollution sooner ( in time ) than the rest of the world?

They will likely beat the U.S. in becoming green because we are a gigantic octopus that is still trying the different kinds of knots using our tentacles. Imagine a scout troop with no leader who knows knots but the octopus cub scout is using its tentacles to learn.

Someone should solve the coupling problem for all of those coal trucks. If they are all going to the same place, they should become a train. Build a train track parallel to that artery. They probably save a lot of diesel fuel, too. Friction is largely independent of the contact surface area. That is why freight trains in the U.S. are usually ridiculously long - bless you if you are stopped from moving by a freight train.

Perhaps trucks should be built with the same coupling mechanisms as the railroad cars.

That is actually a requirement for any action. See it first in your mind's eye and work out the kinks. Trust in the presto ease and become a Fool. Fools get started convinced how easy it is but that is their major advantage - having STARTED. If it does not work out, try something else knowing and understanding what has gone wrong.

We broke away from the old continuous way of communication and went to the digital age in which our communication right now is made possible thanks to information theory, transistor, optical fibers, lasers, etc. mostly discovered and developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories after World War II whose home was in the west side of lower Manhattan.

Here is what you disregard - there must be rules/continuity for sorting and ordering/dissemination. Chaos must be filtered/translated or it remains chaos/unusable - so to be useable - it is only "seemingly" chaos - chaos to those who do not have the filter/aid.

Say the worlds leader in CVT ( constant variable transmission ) - were to market an upgrade to all makes and models - even if that was only to cars that they manufacture. To be going down the road at 70 mph and the engine only turning 500 rpm. Daymn - now apply that to all cars/trucks. With a proper range built into the transmission - there is no reason why any vehicle could not be at speed and only have the engine turning over at 500 rpm rather than 1000 or more rpm to maintain speed. It is a matter of engineering. Currently there is not a single car on the road that at speed turns less than 1500 rpm to maintain speed ( ummm perhaps 1200 ) - not at 30 mph not at 70 mph. Look at the gas savings there. Come up with an alternative to gasoline? Fine. Wouldn't that alternative also benefit from the upgraded CVT ? From dead-stop start-up torque to high speed ( or just at speed ) low engine rpms - what a major improvement.

Now we need to transition to those electric motors - that means improved batteries and the means to keep em charged - and then the whole process needs to continue to improve. Having a standard mating process - mating between engine ( whatever type ) and transmission ( whatever type ) will be a step in the right direction - along with the ability for less affluent individuals to upgrade as improvements become available.

One still needs massive growth in creation of electricity as well as storage and transfer. One huge step forward would be the development and implementation of a liquid metal battery into the power grid for smooth distribution of power as well as for stopping the loss of power generated.

BTW - until everywhere is on the grid (s) ? One would still need on-board power for trips off of the existing grid (s).

Physics are physics - the properties of electricity of an electric charge are known. Are you complaining that they are withholding proprietary information that is preventing you from duplicating their efforts to create your own functioning battery? Those BASTARDS!!!

You are adding in a complication - the creation of the tubes as well as the handling of the air - better off staying with an electronic grid and electrical delivery system. The simpler the system - the better the system.

The controlling power - intelligence - is in the vehicle as well as in the grid - it is communication as well as awareness - applied. The more constructs you add to any system - the more possibilities of failure you also add.

I think the U.S. can easily lay claim to having invented much of the breakthrough technologies defining the modern world. China was very inventive but they went through a great slump and has recovered. That is why I still bet that China will become green faster than the U.S. but God help them, don't copy U.S. stupidities! Yes, we are a nation of Fools but that IS why we are inventive.

That is why I still bet that China will become green faster than the U.S.

Getting back to what I have been saying - continuous process (s) improvement - they only need to take and utilize what has already been discovered while also improving upon it - hell they wouldn't really need to improve on much of what already is known - just implement - improvements can always be made.

China and the U.S. lack the wills to pay the price to turn the world green. It is a matter of money in regard to the global commons. It has already become very late. This Titanic seems destined to sink but I have my wormhole ready easily with so much negative energy around.

China is trying to play industrial domination - So - while they may be implementing green technology faster than the US of A they are also burning fossil fuel like there is no tomorrow ( funny that ) doing it.

And it is very true that the USA ( along with most of the modern world ) does not have the collective will to implement - truly fully implement the green technology that we are capable of implementing ( have available to implement ).

BTW - door to door delivery - just how many delivery vehicles are you looking to put into the system? I mean to serve the whole population - everyone - to serve everyone - not the majority - not to serve a minority - to serve everyone.

Like I said - you raise issues to be addressed - but you do not ( have not ) raise an argument against my original post.

Amazon is fast closing in on making that coverage possible, of course for those with sufficient money because we still live in a money economy.

Your car needs electronic control most likely to go to the 6-speed transmission. That requires knowledge workers who are usually highly paid so their work must be amortized over many units of sale. That usually means a mass market but as long as people are well off enough to buy a new car or there is no great penalty for junking the old car, things are not going to change. Rahm Emmanuel was right about crises being too precious to lose as opportunities.

The transmission has a control modual so does the engine - all that is required is mating the engine to the transmission and allowing the systems to communicate with eachother - that is done at the manufacturing of the elements - it is not done at point of installation.

Not everyone can afford to buy a new car - that is why the used car market exists - that is why there are always more inefficient vehicles on the road than there are state of the art vehicles ( multiples of inefficient vehicles to state of the art ).

Perhaps the knowledge required for the mechanical and electrical mating of the transmission to the engine is only available at the manufacturing site or they require heavy equipments or specialized tools. How about building the lightweight scooters that have coupling option to latch on to common carriers?

How about building the lightweight scooters that have coupling option to latch on to common carriers?

Scooters are not the answer - and - there are plenty of things that one can attach to a scooter to allow greater carrying capacity - why increase the size of common carriers to have them able to transport scooters ( that was your idea wasn't it? Was it? Get transported to a location in common with others to then use your more efficient scooter? ).

The idea should be to continuously improve all forms of transportation to be more efficient/clean - eventually to be completely clean in operation.

Your 1st argument was not one to reason against what I posted - Nope - It brought up issues that need to be addressed - same with your 2nd argument (?).

Mass transit has a place - and in the future may be all that is needed - but for now mass transit is woefully lacking. Use it for all of your needs - how much fun are you gonna have going to work and from work to see your Dr and return to work ( how much time lost ? ) - Go to work and on your return home stop for groceries or your other needed errands - how is that gonna work out for ya? Not everyone is gonna be able to live close to work and their Dr or Dentist or their shopping center or or or or or or or

We need to think differently and also look at how other societies and our own society in the old days to find better alternatives.

Commuting to and back from work was a product of the Industrial Age but the stupid structure remains with managers fighting turf battles and enforcing facetime. Doctors used to come to you not the other way around. Peapod can deliver groceries to your home. If you are out, you may want to start a neighborhood concierge service to buffer deliveries and sendoffs.

If the doctor is inconvenient to see, don't get sick by listening to your body and take good care of it. This is actually possible because I have done it after understanding that I AM a machine so I need to take good care of it and not listen to the gobbledygook about miraculous pills and treatments. Not getting sick was far more enjoyable than ANY treatments.

If you do not like living where you are, move to a better place after assessing the pros and cons. I like holding fast to my values and owning an omnivorous mind.

Yeah yeah yeah - you have much to say about what should be - but you do not present a transition process to get there. My post is about a transition process - a point of continual change leading to the best outcome of any process. You present a possible end - not a process of getting there.

Use the onion model for incremental development. Educate yourself first - feed your mind with knowledge and nourish your soul with wisdom. Take care of your own body and listen to it well. Take care of your relationships so you have a supportive network of family and friends. Change how you interact with our money economy one thing at a time. After a decade or so, things will have changed far more to your liking. Any great project takes time so your life's project merits your entire lifetime if need be. Keep your eyes wide open and mind alert because new opportunities pop up from time to time.

Then came horses and oxen and other beasts of burden as well as equipment to attach to them - such as various types of carts/wagons/trollies - then as business grew ( most often expanding it's footprint prior to opening new shops ) - number of workers grew as well as housing needs - soon people were living further and further away from work.

The idea is - everyone needs the ability to be able to provide for themselves - at this point in time that means work/employment for everyone - as we have not gotten to the point where our prior works provide for us all and are self sustaining/repairing/improving.